Flexible packages for fluids are widely used in the foods and household chemical industry. For example laminated cartons for milk, beverages, fluid detergents, household cleaners or fabric softeners, motor oil or cosmetics which often are of brick type (rectangular) or of the gable top type (rectangular but with gable top)are familiar and much used packages for fluids. They are appreciated for their light weight and a low raw material consumption, good handlebility by the user of the fluid and simple processing requirements for those commercializing fluids in such packages.
The stability of such a flexible container typically must satisfy the highest requirements of the different usage situations of the package. The principle three usage situations are that at the manufacturer where the package is assembled and filled with fluid, the storage and distribution conditions (including transport and store handling) and finally at the user of the fluid. Out of these the storage and distribution conditions pose the highest requirements on a flexible container, in particular sufficient stackability is critical in depot storage and truck transport.
In order to limit the material consumption but still to withstand essentially all storage and distribution requirements while improving at the same time the handling during storage and in the distribution system flexible containers are often combined into a packaging assembly. The packaging assembly can be formed by stretch or shrink wrapping several flexible containers together,.which improves foremost the handling of the packaging assembly and not so much the stability. Also the packaging assembly can be formed by a high strength outer case which provides the required strength to support stacking of several packaging assemblies and makes handling of the number of inner containers which are combined in the packaging assembly easy.
The before mentioned advantages of the flexible container are however diminished when using such a high strength outer case. Therefore an objective of the present invention is to provide a packaging assembly having flexible inner containers and only requiring a low strength outer case. Alternative the objective of the present invention is to improve the stackability of a packaging assembly comprising inner containers combined by an outer case.
Other objectives satisfied or improved by the present invention are reduced material consumption for the inner containers and the outer case; allowing to reduce or eliminate additional packaging support or protection items for the packaging assembly (corner posts, cardboard layers, stretch or shrink wrap); better appearance of the individual packaging assembly and of larger combinations of packaging assemblies. The improved packaging assembly further does not restrict the use as a display case.
It is yet another independent objective of the present invention to provide a process allowing the manufacture of the improved packaging assembly. These and other objectives will become more apparent in the following description of the invention.